Supercharging Australia's Clean Energy Transition Part 2

Posted on 3 Jun 2022
Updated on 3 Jun 2022
2-minute read
Renewable energy

In 2018, ISF sought to know how superannuation could fund a transition to renewable energy by 2030. Three years and some major world events later, we reframe the question to ask how much of Australia's super fund would be required to achieve energy sector decarbonisation by 2050.

Australia has been unable to meet its clean energy transitions for the past three years. But the falling costs of renewable energy, improved energy efficiency, and more funds available mean it’s now more feasible than ever before to make the transition to 100% renewables by 2050. An aggressive catch-up would be needed by 2030 to make this happen, however.

Background

In 2018, Future Super and 350.org approached ISF to collaborate and tell a bigger story about how Australia’s transition to a 100% renewable energy system could be funded by a proportion of the nation’s retirement savings. ISF combined its energy modelling with data on Australia’s forecast future superannuation funds, to define the proportion of Australia’s retirement savings that would be needed to support the transition to 100% renewables by 2050.

Three years have passed with some major events impacting the climate debate, from a global movement by striking school children and new net zero commitments by major emitters, to an increase in extreme weather events around the world and a global pandemic.

Future Super and ISF revisit the research after three years to investigate how these major shifts have impacted Australia’s clean energy transition, and whether our trajectory to clean energy can still be effectively funded with the nation’s retirement savings.

more information

Supercharging Australia’s Clean Energy Transition part 1 (2018)